The Role of the Family for Succeeding in Late Primary School: Comparing First Generation-, Second Generation-, and Non-Immigrant Students

A steady rise in global migration has led to a growing share of immigrant-origin children in schools, who face manifold challenges. Primary schools are a key environment for students’ development and adaptation, and normative developmental, psychological adjustment, and acculturative tasks shaping their adaptation are reflected in different measures of school success. Additionally, students’ families can support their development, but the specific mechanisms may vary between first-, second-generation, and non-immigrant students. Thus, there is a need to investigate adaptation processes of first- and second-generation immigrant students separately and in comparison to their non-immigrant peers. For a comprehensive view, we investigated several central measures of school success (reading competence, grade point average, track recommendation, life satisfaction), as well as the role of the family, including structure variables (majority language use, socio-economic status), educational beliefs (educational aspirations), and processes (parent-child reading). Based on N = 271 German fourth-graders (Mage = 10.47 years, SD = 0.55; n = 102 first-generation, n = 68 second-generation, n = 101 non-immigrants), we found disadvantages regarding first-generation students’ reading competence, grades, and likelihood of receiving a high track recommendation compared to second-generation and/or non-immigrant students. No significant differences emerged between second-generation and non-immigrant students. Multigroup analyses revealed that educational aspirations were positively associated with grades and parent-child reading with higher life satisfaction in general. Further, life satisfaction was positively linked to educational aspirations in first-generation immigrant students only, and to socioeconomic status among second-generation immigrant students. The results highlight families as a source of valuable resources to protect students against educational disadvantages, but specific mechanisms may differ depending on students’ immigrant status. This is especially important for first-generation immigrant students, who showed significant educational discrepancies compared to second-generation and non-immigrant students.